you could get the same from steel-cut oats, but steel cut oats are not as much fun, and also not remotely frothy.

It feels like it's been ages since I've hung out here. Jen and Stephanie have brought home a wealth of stories from Africa, and meanwhile, I overslept and the dog ate my homework. Which is utterly transparent code for I blanked last week, completely (or was it the week before?) to the point where it didn't even occur to me until Thursday or somesuch, and adventures save the day.

I've been posting here at Shutter Sisters since the beginning, starting out with my point-and-shoot in hand. This circle is well-worn denim, a retreat that just fits. I love it here and yet I fear, always, that I don't have much to add other than OMG CUTE. OMG, LIKE, LOOK. A BOOGER.

I could write about lens angst. About how I branched out from my ever-present nifty-fifty for a 10-20mm wide angle, which I'm now wishing I could trade in for a fixed 35mm, or a macro, or really, anything else. Or I could write about how the light has changed, perhaps the day after I took these photos. A pelting rain, then frost and summer is gone, instantly--and how that changes the tone of photography, winter's scent in the air.

But it's late and all I have for you is OMG CUTE. OMG LIKE, LOOK. Well, maybe a bit more than that.

Today, show us photos that capture one thing -- not just for kids, but any prop, a piece of clothing, an accessory -- that draws your camera. That thing that makes you think, whenever it crosses your frame of view: one of these days, I've got to capture that. Because it makes me happy.

first s'more

Let's start the week off being luscious and joyful. I want to see fingers licked clean and glorious mess, a slurping of life. Hands gotten dirty and all the better for it. I want to see souls big and little lost in one of those perfect, unguarded moments -- not just to do with food, but with all kinds of tasting and sensing and revelling in the world. Go.

breach

I don't know what it was that led me to check my Recent Activity tonight. It's what I used to call my 'under the radar' Flickr account - reserved for en masse shoots of other families, of personal gatherings. Birthday parties, family reunions. Chocolate on the faces of cousins, sandy toes at the beach, intimate moments post-christening.

These are not my children to share. Best keep these in a place that's not attached to the blog. Best keep these in a place that's a quiet needle in the biggest haystack anyone's ever known.

'Private' is an extra step that prevents internet-averse relatives and friends from finding the photos they want to see. And so I went everything but, restricting my photos from searches, refusing to use any manner of descriptive text, tags or any other mode of sharing.

No one untoward will ever find my images in the hugeness of the internet - especially not when there are so many dolts out there tagging their kids' photos with 'bathtime fun'. I do nothing to promote them, and only pass on the URL to people I've sat next to at dinner. Simple as that, right?

I've written elsewhere about my contempt for people who spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about sharing photos on the internet. You know, those who shriek smugly about how we've all got it coming to us, damn short of fire and brimstone, for being so dumb as to share images online. As if Flickr amounts to putting our children out on the front stoop wearing sandwich boards that say FREE FOR THE TAKING.

To say that sharing photos on the internet is a wholly bad thing is akin to saying that kissing is nothing more than a gateway for disease. It's a tragic overstatement that would have us all stifle joy and creativity and community.

And then tonight. Two recently-added Contacts, both of whom belong to several red-flag-raising groups - one of which was had a discussion topic called "We R Not Monsters!!!" which justified the stealing of child photography for avatars on sites such as Orkut.

How the hell did they find me? How is that possible?

Needless to say, I've now gone private on this account. Flickr allows you to share a 'guest pass' on private photos to people who are not Flickr members - a URL which, when emailed directly, allows access but not random browsing. This is news to me, and I'm grateful for it.

I do not believe in internet-birthed bogeymen. My squeamishness is simply because I want to share on my own terms. But how realistic it is to promise those terms when there are people out there who have no respect for image ownership nor any regard for the justified protectiveness of parents?

So tell me this, and forgive me for bringing up a potentially unsolvable conundrum. If this post generates a bunch of oh god that's it I'm done the sky is falling comments I will pelt you with rubber chickens. I want to hear measured thought and actions. I want to know how you feel, how you tackle this.

How do you share responsibly on the internet - especially photos of people and children who are not your own? How do you balance the need for self-promotion (for those of you who are professional) and creative sharing with the need to protect the moments you've captured?

a city's embrace

On Sunday bloggers scattered -- some to the airport, others to shop. Many ended up at the Art Institute of Chicago. I stood in front of Picasso's Nude Under a Pine Tree as a couple approached.

I love this one, said the woman. Their eyes travelled over the canvas. She continued, speaking softly as though in a church. He didn't see a nose or legs or breasts. He saw bodies and faces as shapes, as triangles and squares. And so that's how he painted them.

In Chicago I couldn't get enough of line and shape. Containers of electricity all standing poised, perhaps slightly forward, into the wind. We were all overwhelmed. There were tears, and there was delight and mischief. But most of all there was recognition.

I know you! I see you. Come over here. You are shaped like me.

Empty spaces smile, waiting to be filled.

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Today, think like Picasso. Show me photographs that crackle with line and shape -- and not just explicitly. Blur your eyes from simple subjects and see blocks of colour, balance, interplay. And share!

Pictured above, clockwise l-r: Chicago reflected in the mirrorball; serenity at the Art Institute; downtown seen through an Institute window; the lovely Jenny the Bloggess.

when stories come alive

I went out there with my camera feeling like a ghost hunter. And I was, in a way. Looking to find evidence of spirits that exist in this very place, or in some other parallel version of it.

Plenty of things make you a medium. Words, a camera, a paintbrush, an instrument. Voices whisper and nudge, wanting to be passed on, and so we do. And hope to god we don't get a tick in the doing of it (IN THE EAR NO LESS).

What you see above is the land where it all happens -- this is where a story was born which became a book, and where Eric, the pirate hunter, lives in that other dimension. That's his farmhouse, which smells like fresh cut wood. His parents bake bread in a kitchen wood oven, a glowing iron hearth that is the pulse of their home. They keep peacocks and they milk goats and yes, Virginia, there are ticks.

Eric and Missy, and Joe, and all the others -- they talk to me, whispering in a way I'd never hear if I didn't know to listen. They tell me how they need things to be. One day the pirate hunter said to me You're going to have to show them. You've got to convince people it's real, just like I had to.

I know,  I replied. But I don't know how.

Didn't I tell you?  he replied. I've got my dad's old polaroid. That's how I record the evidence that's too big to fit into the sailmaker's chest.

And so on his behalf I became a twelve-year-old boy on a mission. I became my character. I skulked through the woods watching for clues, and I felt watched. What I ended up with was a peek inside Eric's journal, complete with observations, speculation and context.

Photography helps stories to crackle and spark, don't you think?

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Today, show us how you've applied photography to storytelling, or applied it in other mediums. Show us scrapbooks and collages, canvas prints and websites. Or, show us processing that lends a vintage or artistic feel. What about that treatment made your photo feel 'done' -- and what role does photography and processing play in your storytelling life?

Thanks to all of you for bearing me as I pull the trigger, to share this enormous day. It's my birthday, and the day of the book site reveal (in preparation for the release in October). The photographic aspect has been the cherry of the creative process. Pure maraschino joy. Shutter Sisters is my home, and when I'm at home and happy I dance around naked like a fool. And so here you have it.